Span's Story pt1
by trunksluver
Summary: This is totally out of whack of the DBZ thing. Set in an underground camp of refugees led by a genetically-engineered person named Span.


Note: Span is my original character, although the rest of the characters are owned by the creators of Dragonball, not me. So please, leave out the lawyers...   
  
"It's been ten years, Vegeta." Span's soft voice echoed through the room, the power behind it unmistakable.   
  
"So it has, Kat." The once proud saiyan prince had to crane his head up to look at the Ultimate Warrior from her perch near the roof, but look he did. He noticed the changes his prot?g? had undergone, the strong, humanoid fingers turned into casing for retractable claws, the once clear blue eyes turned into molten gold. What changes couldn't he see? What transformations had he missed?   
  
Span was careful to hide her tears from Vegeta. The nickname was a reminder of old times, one's that were remembered fondly, even if they weren't the easiest part of her life… training with Vegeta wasn't known for it's relaxation time.   
  
"What are you here for, after all this time?" She asked.   
  
Time. It had affected everything, even the man Span had thought invincible. The saiyan life-span was twice that of a human, but despite that, lines were faintly etched into his face. Time had affected the race of fugitives living in The Underground. Many of the children had forgotten the aliens that had taken control of the Above, and the adults only saw the Enemy as a distant memory, maybe to invade their nightmares once in a while. Time had affected the wounds of the past, as well as thoughts of the future. The Hito-Bito were content with their lives in the artificial world they had lived in for 50 years, especially since the Gaikoku-jin had seemed to have forgotten the underground even existed. Or maybe they just haven't found anymore of the caves... The last raid had been a small group of droids, easily taken care of by a lower class warrior.   
  
"I'm here to help you lead the Underground… Although it looks like I am no longer needed. I failed, Princess. I failed to bring my son home from the enemy base, and I failed to be here to help you grow. I am tired of failing. All I want to do now is be home."   
  
"It is not such a failure, sensei. You killed many of the enemy searching for your son. You were able to teach me what I needed to know before you left. We have been without Trunks for a decade. It's time to let him go." The statement broke her own heart.   
  
Trunks, who had done much of the research that allowed her to be born, the man who, in his grief for his lost love, had speeded up her aging process within the glass womb, was loved almost as much as the man who had raised her, if not more. She had only known Trunks for a few precious weeks before he had disappeared, but he had left his impact on her heart and soul. He had implanted her need for justice in that small amount of time, had taught her how to act like a normal person… To find things in common with the people she led. And it was all because of the 40 year old she had adored since stepping out of the glass growth tube.   
  
"Hai, my lady, I realized that a while a go. I apologize for my absence."   
  
"Welcome home, King Vegeta."   
  
"Arigato, Rida Span."   
  
The proud king bowed his head respectfully and left the room, leaving the Rida weary and spent from the formality throbbing through her brain. Ki's, especially high ones, had always affected her more powerfully then anyone else. Her scientists were not sure why, but when Kat was going through Bulma's notes on genetically enhanced humans, she noticed that it was considered a side affect. Perhaps the same thing had happened to the test tube baby.   
  
The door squeaked as it was tentatively swung open. "Span?"   
  
"Yes, Maruu?"   
  
The boy's wide, dark eyes came around the edge of the door to glance at her. Usually the boy's fear of her was a source of amusement, but today it was a very good reason to get pissed off. But she could not take it out on an innocent child. Perhaps at something she could shred…   
  
"One of the hydraulics workers is asking an audience."   
  
"Send him in." Kat quickly counted under her breath, determined not to show her stress to any one of her people.   
  
"Yes, Rida." Maruu's eyes bobbed near the door, a string of his long blond hair flashing in the doorway at the last moment. An odd lad, she mused quietly. He was the youngest child of Ubuu and Marron, two of her good friends. Maruu's strange coloring, dark eyes and skin with platnium hair, made him subject to some abuse from the older children, but he was promising to be very powerful when he grew older. Perhaps it was time for the boy to be taken to hand…   
  
"Leader?" A young man came around the doors to bow to her.   
  
"How may I help you?" Span asked. From her perspective the guy was a dwarf, but then, he was standing right next to the very doors built to impress giants.   
  
"My wife has just given birth to a girl-child. I have come to update the tally."   
  
If Span had the feline ears along with the claws, they would have perked up.   
  
"What have you named her?" She asked, much more interested then she had been. She'd always loved children.   
  
"Sharon Millennia Sprout. After my great grandmother."   
  
"Congratulations."   
  
"Thank you, my lady."   
  
There was an awkward silence as Span waited to be invited to see the child, and the man put it off. He did not want such a powerful freak in his home, much less near his kid. The pain in Kat's eyes was unmistakable as she dismissed him and watched as Mr. Sprout left. Ever since her transformation, none of her people wanted her near them. Ten years ago they accepted a young girl who was permanently super saiyan. A decade later they couldn't accept the changling woman she had become.   
  
**"Just remember…. Not everyone is going to like this." Span heard Gero tell her from the past. Teen Span was too busy studying her new weaponry to listen that much. Gero had made some alterations on her already-perfect body. She now had claws, lethal weapons hidden within her now nail-less hands.   
  
"I don't care what anyone else thinks." The arrogant girl smiled ferally at the scientist while he inserted a needle into her arm. "What in Hades is that for? Get it away from me!"   
  
"It's cat dna… so your body doesn't reject the treatment.   
  
"Alright." The girl forced herself to calm down. Although she feared needles beyond anything else, she liked her newest arsenal much better.   
  
She had trusted him so easily. Span didn't think to ask about the consequences, she just wanted the power the claws would bring. It wasn't enough that she had flown Snake Way in 1/8th of the time of the great Goku… wasn't enough that she was already the most powerful being in the universe besides the Queen Gaikoku…She had to have more. Her eyes began to turn colors as soon as she got home. A year later, her eyes changed from the hard blue-green of a permanent super-saiyan to an even harder yellow. **   
  
Many of her people hadn't wanted anything to do with the young lady before the transformation. The entire colony knew she could destroy them all with just a thought and a flick of her wrist, and that scared them. Now those that hated her had a very good excuse to try and kill her, or at least send her Above. Span shuddered at the thought. To be sent Above was a death sentence... If you were lucky. If you weren't, well, you'd wish you were dead to say the least. Kat quickly counted to ten before calling her secretary. "Milaina, could you cancel all appointments for the rest of the day, or if they are important, please let Ubuu take care of it?"   
  
"Sure Rida"   
  
She was so tired of leading people who hated her. She was tired of being different. And most of all, she was tired of being alone.   
  
"Like that's unlikely to change," she snorted to herself. She was 14 years old, chronologically, and she looked twenty. Span was going to live for 200 years at least... And was likely to be alone for all of them. With a regretful sigh, Span fell asleep in her huge, empty bed.   
  
  
*******  
While the girl slept in her quiet home, Trunks was sweating his frustrations out in a gaikoku sauna.   
  
"Mienna!" He said the Gaikoku-jin name in disgust. The woman was a trial. He had been trying to court her for.. well, he wasn't sure how long. But it had been a while. And still she persisted in saying "no". Of the many names she'd called him, "ugly" was the worst. He didn't know why, but it felt wrong. Like in another lifetime, he'd been considered handsome. Trunks shook the thoughts out of his head. Another lifetime... ha! The gaikoku did not believe in reincarnation, although it was part of the study of religion in myryu classes.   
  
"Where'd that come from?" He asked to no one in particular. His only answer was another hiss from the heated stones as one of the robots poured water on them.   
  
As a 2nd class warrior, Trunks was not considered powerful physically. But mentally, he outranked even the Queen Gaikoku. Trunks could solve problems, and break things down using his brain. He was original in design, and looks. Some of the women thought he was exotic, and wanted him for their living collections of wild animals that no longer existed wildly. Others thought he was ugly, shaped strangely from the Gaikoku, and should have been killed. He WAS rather odd looking next to his fighting comrades. Gaikoku all had long, thin legs, bent backwards at the knees like a grass hopper. They didn't have feet, instead they had round disks covered in oily green scales. The rest of their body looked like an elongated human, the thin skin resting directly on their bones, giving them a starved look. But their faces were far from human. Their head was covered in the same green scales as the rest of their body, with tufts of red and black hair popping out from underneath at the back. Huge eyes dominated their face, and their mouth was toothless. Instead they ate with long, hollow tongues. Mienna was considered one of the more beauteous of the species... In actuality, any human would have thought she was hideous. Trunks, being raised by the Gaikoku after the Ertlings had abandoned him, thought she was normal.   
  
No one feared him... they rarely cared if he was even around, unless there was a problem that needed to be solved, or something of that matter. Then he was a hero for a few seconds. Trunks swallowed the bile in his throat and thought about the story of his people...   
  
After the Gaikoku had fought off the hostile humans from the territory given by rightful treaty to them, they found the man wandering around, crying and without memory of anything. The Queen had felt sorry and allowed him to be adopted. Of course, many of the council advised against taking a vicious Ert into their colony, but when it was made into a decree, not one spoke against her. So he was raised along with the egglings of the colony.   
  
"TRUNKS!" yelled Kuculuno through the broken sound speaker. "The Queen is asking for an audience. You have a mission to do!"   
  
"Oh yippee!" Trunks muttered sarcastically. "What's it to be this time, fixing her crown for the third time, or cleaning the floor?"   
  
Sometimes he wished they had just left him alone and abandoned. Suddenly he smirked. Why not teleport in and scare them to death?   
  
When the purple haired man appeared out of thin air on the platform, many of the people filling the audience room screeched in the back of their throats in fear. Even the Queen, supposedly the most powerful Gaikoku on the planet, shrank from him.   
  
Trunks waved his hand in the respectful sequence and asked, "You called, Queen?"   
  
"You are going on a undercover mission to the enemy base. Pack your things, you will learn the language over the speakers in your cubicle."   
  
All of a sudden, Trunks was scared. He had to leave the only thing he had ever known?? NOT LIKELY! "Wouldn't another be better for this mission? Perhaps Nurikoku under holo?"   
  
"Do you question me??" She sounded indignant.   
  
"NO!" Being rude to the queen could mean death. Trunks went out the room as quickly as he could without seeming rude and began to pack as a tape played over the crackling speaker in his room.   
  
  
******  
Meanwhile, in the atmosphere….   
  
"OH MY GOD!! YOUR HIGHNESS, WE ARE GOING TO BURN UP IN THE ATMOSTPHERE!!!" A young saiyan ran around the huge ship yelling. As the man ran past her, Ice Queen bonked him unconscious. "Shut up Yasai." She completely ignored the plop as the slave crashed to the floor and turned back to her controls.   
  
"I'm not losing this ship!" It had been a journeying present from Frieza awhile back, and had a certain sentimental value. After all, he was her favorite cousin. Notice she didn't think of saving her own life…   
  
"Nothin' left to do but duck and cover…" Ice Queen muttered when she saw the flames around her multiple view-screens.   
  
Icy dragged her pet saiyan under the consul and awaited her fate.   
  
  
******  
Back on Earth…   
  
Trunks closed his eyes and rubbed his aching forehead. Learning an entire language in thirty minutes can do a serious jig on your brain. Although, he guessed, since it was already in his memory banks supposedly, it must have been easier on him. The smooth elevator was taking him to the lush green lower floor, the one place every Gaikoku-jin avoided.   
  
The Gaikoku could exploit the riches of the earth, but not enjoy them. Once he overheard two of the mineral students talking about the effect of anything organic touching a Gaikoku-jin, and both had shuddered in a very human way.   
  
He emerged into the bright sunlight of the barren earth for a moment before it was covered by something slightly brighter. Trunks looked up, and suddenly, everything went dark.   
  
  
*******  
"There are at least two foreign objects detected on the surface. Would you like to have these investigated?" the voice sounded loud and mechanical. "Damn, my head…" Span groaned, grabbing the source of her agony. "Is that an answer?" just as loud, but now she sounded rather annoyed. "No, it was a complaint." The girl snapped. "I'll investigate it myself, no need to wake anyone else up." Kat stretched her arms above her head and yawned before unfolding herself from the too big bed. "Probably just another meteorite."   
  
  
******  
"Hey you!" a sharp kick to the ribs asked a pressing question; Was he alive?   
  
Trunks wasn't so sure. He'd felt the foot in his side, but he kind of remembered a bright light falling from the sky and killing him. Trunks' blue eyes opened to confirm his thoughts. He was definitely dead, because that was the Angel of Hell smiling down on him.   
  
"So it's alive. Might nasty bruise you got there," Span wrinkled her nose at the stench rising from the guy. That was why she thought he was dead in the first place; He smelt of death and decay. And the only reason she could tell it was male was because he had a pretty flat figure. Otherwise, he was a faceless, nameless, it. The dust and heat from the decimated Earth arranged that.   
  
The slight woman hoisted his heavy body over her shoulder and stalked away, leaving the beaten human to keep his head from bouncing against the rock hard shoulder, or from hitting his face against a leathery… wing? Angels don't have leather wings, they have feathered wings… mayhap a demon had come to torture him. As the girl bent over to study the reckage that leveled him, Trunks had a flash of memory.   
  
"P-p-p-pan?" He felt the girl stiffen, and the air rushed out of him as he was plopped ungracefully in the dust, further obscuring his features.   
  
"How do you know my name?" She demanded. It sounded so much like Span, it couldn't have been anything else.   
  
A groan came from behind them, startling the girl out of her inquiry. She whirled around on the balls of her feet, drawing a long sword from the sheath on her back. She was alert and ready to protect an innocent, albeit one she knew nothing about.   
  
"Frieza's damn henchmen dropped another anvil on my head for the last time.." An Ice-jin kicked her way out of the reckage of her ship, the peices flying away to leave a clear space for the two forms.   
  
"Well? What are you doing just sitting there? Help me salvage this!" when the two just continued to blink stupidly at her, one of them obviously trying to look ferocious, Ice Queen just turned away, muttering, "So much for the natives... How am I supposed to rebuild my ship surrounded by idiots?"   
  
Yasai groaned from his spot in the dust. "I know you think saiyans are just dirty monkeys, but we don't enjoy DIRT BATHS!"   
  
Suddenly one of the natives spoke up,"Frieza? Saiyans?" It was the one with the sword aimed at them.   
  
"Yes... Frieza... Saiyan... you... know... place... with... fuel?" Ice spoke slowly, as if Span and Trunks were brainless.   
  
Span glared at the female, "If you give us sufficent reason, I MIGHT allow you to refuel at my base. But that's yet to be seen."   
  
Span pressed an invisible button on her belt, setting off a low roaring sound in the distance. Ice Queen's eyes widened, wondering what she was going to do. The female freak probably summoned some kind of monster or something..   
  
But what appeared was far from the ice-jin's expectations. It was a capsule-cycle, hauling a covered cart of some sort with it.   
  
"Hop in everyone."   
  
"NO WAY!" Yasai yelled, crossing his arms and widening his stance in an unconciously defensive pose.   
  
Span stalked up to him, her eyes flaring with a gold fire would have terrified many of the citizens of Hito-bito.   
  
They stood toe to toe, the small wind ruffling hair, melding long black hair with shorter blonde. In one second out of time, Yasai was glaring into almost copper colored eyes, and in the next, he was staring down metal.   
  
"Wha?" he asked in confusion. How'd he get into the cart? The company wasn't slow in coming.   
  
Ice Queen's grumbles were lost in the rumbling of the motorcycle, but the sentiment behind it wasn't. "How dare she treat a member of the royal ice-jin family like... like a henchmen! I'm very important to Frieza!"   
  
Span continued to steer her cycle, ignoring the grumbling of her prisoners. She could hear every word they said, and it didn't matter to her. Frieza's been dead for years!she wanted to yell back at them, but it didn't matter. She could show them the vid cubes she had at base if they wanted proof.   
  
"MROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!" BUMP, BANG! "AH!!!! ROAD WAFFLES!" "NO! ROAD KILL!!!"   
  
The motorcycle and prison cart went flying wheels over rider until it landed about three feet away from the 'speed bump'.   
  
"Is it dead?" Ice Queen's voice piped up from the dented cart.   



End file.
